Industrial Tribunals Northern Ireland Decisions

 
THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS

CASE REF: 1371/03

CLAIMANT: Peter William Hinchliffe

RESPONDENT: Hamon Mariani Battista

DECISION

The decision of the tribunal is that the claimant's claim is dismissed in its entirety.

Appearances:

The claimant did not appear and was not represented.

The respondent did not appear and was not represented.

REASONS

1. The tribunal considered the claimant's notice of application together with documents and correspondence on the file from the claimant, the respondent and the claimant's wife. Whilst the respondent did not lodge a notice of appearance there was a letter on file dated 20 April 2004 disputing the claimant's claim on the basis that invoices had not been received and, that the claimant had not worked on the dates specified.
2. The claimant's claim was for non-payment of wages. The issues for the tribunal

were, whether this amounted to a breach of contract within the meaning of the Industrial Tribunals Extension of Jurisdiction Order (Northern Ireland) 1994 ("the 1994 Order") and further, whether this amounted to an unlawful deduction from wages in contravention of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 ("the 1996 Order") at Articles 3 and 45(3).

3. The claimant claimed payment for a period from the beginning of February to 15 April 2003 and submitted one invoice in support of his claim for the period of March 2003. The respondent, an Italian Company, apparently based in Milan, by letter raised queries in relation to the claimant's claim and these queries were put by letter to the claimant on two occasions by the Office of the Industrial Tribunals and the Fair Employment Tribunal (OITFET). There has been no response from the claimant to these queries despite the fact that letters have been sent to OITFET by the claimant's wife on his behalf.
4. The tribunal has to be satisfied for the purposes of a breach of contract claim under the 1994 Order that the claimant was an employee working under a contract of employment at the relevant time. For the purposes of the claim under the 1996 Order, the tribunal must be satisfied that at the relevant time the claimant was a worker within the meaning of that legislation.
5. The tribunal finds from the documents that the claimant has not discharged the burden of proof to show that he was an employee or a worker and thus fell within the scope of the legislative provisions outlined above. Indeed the information which is available to the tribunal points more towards the claimant being a self-employed contractor rather than either an employee or a worker for the purposes of the relevant legislation. For this reason, the tribunal dismisses the claim in its entirety.

Chairman:

Date and place of hearing: 3 June 2005, Belfast.

Date decision recorded in register and issued to parties: